


spotted

by ellisaco



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, rom com
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellisaco/pseuds/ellisaco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"So you</i> don't <i>think my arse is out of this world?" Louis interrupts, hands on his hips, and of course Harry's managed to offend him. Of course this is his life.</i></p><p>University AU in which Harry pines and Niall meddles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spotted

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic was born when I was creeping my school's Spotted page on facebook, which, if you don't know, is a facebook page where you can post an anonymous message to people you see around campus. Of course the first place my mind went was 'hmm how can I apply this to Harry and Louis???'

Harry has always fancied himself a romantic. He's always enjoyed films where the couple gets together in the end, against all odds, and he believes that there's that one right person for everyone if you just bide your time. Which is what Harry is doing presently, biding his time and waiting until fate sees fit to intervene.

"That's a load of crap, Harry." Zayn says quietly, eyes on his paper, taking notes and shitting all over Harry's beliefs simultaneously. Don't let it be said that Zayn can't multitask. "You're just too scared to talk to him."

Harry makes a low noise of protest—he is not scared. Just because he hasn't actually talked to Louis yet, just because he's stuck to admiring from not-so-afar, just because he's waiting for the right moment...

"If it's meant to be—"

Zayn cuts him off with an unimpressed look that just says _really_? Harry's resolve crumples—it's no use when Zayn knows him so well—and he slouches down in his seat, frowning.

"What if he thinks I'm weird or boring or that my hair is too curly? What if he's straight?" he adds, aghast. That thought probably should have occured to him earlier.

Zayn sighs but puts down his pen and gives Harry his full attention. "Harry, you are weird but that's okay 'cause everyone's a bit weird, and you are far from boring. Your hair could do with a bit of a cut, but he's a twat anyway if that makes a difference to him." He goes back to his notes, then adds, almost as an afterthought, "Oh, and he's definitely into blokes."

Harry clutches at Zayn's arm, because the last bit is a very important piece of information, and Zayn had said it with the nonchalance of someone commenting on the weather.

"How do you know that?"

"My mate Danny's hooked up with him a couple of times." Zayn says, again lacking the proper inflection that such a weighty statement requires. But that's okay; Harry can emote enough for the both of them.

"Zayn! Zayn, do you realise what this means?"

"Um, that you're gay and Louis is into dick, so you should relocate your balls and go talk to him?" Harry can tell that Zayn's interest in the conversation is waning, and their professor is sending them increasingly reproachful glances, so Harry will have to wrap this up.

"I have a plan," he whispers in Zayn's ear. "I'll tell you about it later." He kisses Zayn on the cheek as he retreats and actually takes notes for the second half of class.

 

"So your plan is to continue doing nothing?"

"No, _Leeyum_ , if you had actually listened to what I said..."

Harry consults the list he made on his phone earlier, just to make sure he hit every point.

_button fewer buttons_

_wear tighter jeans (jeggings? (check with gem))_

_flirty eye contact_

_wear shirts that show off tats (louis has lots!!!)_

Check, check, and check. Liam's ignorance has no excuse.

"You already know my vote," Niall says, eyes not straying from the tv. He always gets weirdly invested in those really mad reality shows. Like the one about people eating couch cushions.

"Niall, I'm not going to _serenade him under his dorm window_." Harry had entertained the idea. Normally, it would be right up his alley, ridiculous and over the top but just cute enough to get a pass. But just the thought of putting himself out there and Louis possibly shooting him down makes something unpleasant curl in his stomach.

"He's into drama, bet he loves grand gestures and all that crap."

"'And all that crap', that's beautiful, Niall. You should try that line out on Amy, reckon she wouldn't be able to contain herself if she heard that poetry." Zayn says, smirking.

Niall reaches under Harry to grab the couch cushion he's sitting on, upending Harry so he lands on his arse on the floor. Only his lightning quick reflexes save the fruit salad he had been munching on. Niall is deaf to Harry's grumbled protests as he attacks Zayn with the newly acquired weapon. Liam is busy making sure that neither of them spill his beer, and nobody is paying attention to Harry or his predicament anymore.

He only asks that eighty-five percent of the attention of more than fifty percent of the room be on him for seventy-five percent of the time. That's hardly unreasonable, is it?

In the ensuing scuffle, Harry ends up with a foot in his face, and he decides he needs new friends, ones who are supportive of his efforts to woo the boy of his dreams.

  


Harry and Niall have micro-biology with Louis every Tuesday and Thursday; three hours  of the week that are very near and dear to Harry's heart. Louis is just so sharp and witty and hilarious and lovely ("That's alotta adjectives for someone you've never spoken to."), and basically Harry thinks he deserves the world.

"I could write sonnets just about the sound of his laugh." Harry says wistfully, face in his palms and paying not a lick of attention to the lecture, as usual. He used to be a good student, really; he has the transcripts to prove it. Ah, well, some things are more important than school—true love being one as such.

"No you couldn't, mate. I've read your poetry; it's shite."

Harry flushes. "Niall, that's private!"

Harry is so caught up trying to think of something besides wrinkles that rhymes with crinkles that he doesn't even notice that his professor is calling on him until Niall elbows him sharply in the ribs.

"Um, mitosis is the division of cells." he answers smoothly. They're on the unit about mitosis, right? Or was that last chapter? Or was that high school?

Everyone's laughing now, and Professor Winston is sighing like he's having a hard time remembering why he has such a soft spot for Harry. (It's not because Harry did anything _inappropriate_ , thank you very much, _Zayn—_ he's just a likeable guy.) So. Probably high school, then.

Niall is about to fall out of his chair from laughing and Harry thinks meanly, _good_ , but catches Niall by the elbow at the last second. Niall grins at the girl behind him, shooting her a complicated hand gesture that Harry thinks is meant to convey interest, and she smiles at him like he didn't almost brain himself on her desk just two seconds ago.

Harry is annoyed because he, like _invented_ endearing clumsiness, and Niall is somehow better at it than he is.

"Mate, this is just getting embarrassing," Niall has the gall to say. "We've gotta do something about it." He pulls out his laptop like the answer to Harry's problem can be Googled. (It can't—he's tried.)

Niall logs onto Facebook, and Harry eyes him suspiciously. He can only watch out of the corner of his eye because he wants to give the illusion that Ben—um Professor Winston has his undivided attention. Niall is typing something into the message box that Harry can't make out, and he's giving himself a headache with how hard he's trying. So he leans over into Niall's space and reads the message that Niall is composing to the university's Spotted page.

_t the boy in the man u kit that never pays attention in bio,_

_are you an astronaut because your arse is out of this world!!!!_

_sincerly the curly haired boy that sits behind u and can't stop staring_

By the time Harry registers what is about to happen, Niall has already clicked send. Harry stares at the _message sent_ receipt in horror.

" _Niall_ , oh my god, what did you just do?"

 

By the end of the day, three people have already tagged Harry in the post and five have tagged Louis. Like just in case there was that last remaining shred of hope that he'd get out of this with his dignity intact.

His phone won't stop buzzing with texts from every person he knows. He doesn't reply to most of them, and after Nick's text ( _6/10 terrible chat up line but should get his attention by appealing to his arse ego_ ), stops opening them all together.

He gets home and deletes all 168 episodes of Niall's TiVo'd Great British Bake Off. He remembers too late that, actually, he likes that show too. He and Nick were going to marathon it this weekend while Nick whinged about his latest break up and Harry contemplated aloud the many alternate universes in which he and Louis might be madly in love.

He huffs out an annoyed sigh and sends Niall a text.

_I hope you get buried under a snow drift on your way home_

It only takes Harry approximately 90 seconds to feel bad about the harshness of his words and he sends a second text.

_sorryyyy i dont want u to die maybe just get a bit of frostbite_

_or some snow on your bits_

Niall's reply consists only of an overly long string of 'hahaha'.

 

Harry misses the next two bio classes. He's not _avoiding_ anything, this humiliating life event just so happens to coincide with an increase of workload in his other four classes. Mere coincidence, really. Fortunate happenstance.

He wakes up Tuesday morning to an email from Professor Winston essentially telling him that if he misses one more class, he's not likely to get a passing grade. It's mostly the teasing from Gemma that he would inevitably have to endure if he failed a class that propels him out of bed and across campus.

Harry is making a valiant attempt to sneak in this back door of the lecture hall when he's stopped by a familiar but not familiar voice.

"Well, if it isn't Curly Styles, my not-so-secret arse admirer. You have good taste, I will give you that."

Harry turns slowly, his cheeks going hot, to face none other than Louis Tomlinson. His lips are curled into the beginnings of a smirk, but his expression is otherwise unreadable.

"Oh my god, I swear that wasn't me, it was my friend Niall who thinks he's funny but is—"

"So you _don't_ think my arse is out of this world?" Louis interrupts, hands on his hips, and of course Harry's managed to offend him. Of course this is his life.

"No! I mean—of course it's lovely— not that I was staring—not that your arse isn't worthy of staring—"

Louis finally takes pity on him, holding up a hand for him to stop, but he's laughing now, so Harry supposes he's not too bothered.

"I'm just fucking with you, mate. Your face, though. Think you could make it again so I can capture it on camera?" Louis's full on cackling now, and Harry's sure the flush has travelled down to his chest—but he doesn't actually want Louis to stop teasing him. It's all very confusing.

After a moment of awkward silence, Louis taps his foot impatiently. "Well, Harold? Are you gonna put your money where your mouth is and ask me out?"

Louis seems to be conveniently overlooking the fact that Harry didn't actually write the message, but he's called Harry two different nicknames in as many minutes, so Harry will let it slide. There's also the fact that Louis essentially just asked him out. Yeah, they can definitely sort out technicalities later. Maybe after Harry gets his mouth on Louis's dick.

Harry clears his throat. "Louis, do you—I mean, um, would you like to go out with me?"

There's a second's pause in which Harry thinks that Louis may have just been taking the piss and doesn't actually want to go out with him before Louis's grinning. "I'd love to, Curly. Though I must warn you, I expect you to proper wine and dine me; no more of these half arsed—ha—chat up lines."

He seems to have enjoyed making Harry sweat a bit, and Harry thinks that he might not actually mind. It keeps him on his toes, and he likes working a bit to make people happy.

Harry finds himself nodding eagerly; the matter of who actually wrote the post seems to be a moot point now. He's already going over possible date activities in his head.

Suddenly, Louis is patting Harry's front pockets and fishing his phone out. When he hands it back, he's added Harry on Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook, and typed his number into Harry's contacts. It's—an overwhelming number of platforms on which to contact Louis. But Harry is already thinking about hilarious snaps of his and Niall's cat that he can send Louis to endear him to his unique ("Weird as fuck") brand of humour.

"Text me with the details later, stud." Louis says with a pat to Harry's back that sends a thrill down Harry's spine.

Louis goes to sit at his usual seat and Harry heads to the back corner, because he's still kind of ignoring Niall. Only kind of because Niall is kind of difficult to give the cold shoulder to, he just laughs and curls around you like a koala, and then a minute and a half later you're petting his hair and feeding him the last of your crisps. Um, that might just be Harry though.

When Harry goes to take his seat, he trips over a loose fibre in the carpet and rattles a chair, therefore negating his stealthy entrance. Everyone turns to look at him, and James shakes his arse in Harry's direction.

"Oi, Styles, what's a bloke got to do around here to get you to write a slightly degrading post about him on Spotted?"

The entire class is once again laughing at his expense, but it's fine because really the joke is on them. _They_ don't have a date with Louis Tomlinson, do they? No they do not.

Louis catches Harry's eye and smiles, and pretty much nothing else matters. Harry would let Niall embarrass him in front of the entire school a hundred times over just to have Louis smile at him like that, a hint of mischief, a dash of fondness.

  


Harry is having a crisis. Albeit a very cliche pre-first date crisis, but a crisis nonetheless.

"Oh my god, what trousers do I wear? What shirt do I wear?" He eyes a couple of plaid button ups that have somehow made their way onto the ceiling fan. "How _many_ shirts do I wear?"

"Wear those jeans with the holes in the knees that look like they were painted on." Zayn suggests as he thumbs at his phone.

Harry holds up three pairs of jeans that match that very description. "Which ones?"

In the end, Harry decides on jeans that are tight enough to showcase his legs but not so tight that they couldn't easily be removed and a blue jumper that dips a bit in the front so the tips of his birds wings poke out.

He meets Louis at a nice Italian restaurant that's just off campus. Though not particularly imaginative, Harry figured it would be the best way to get to know each other. Cliches are cliches for a reason.

Louis arrives a bit late, but that's fine because it means that Harry gets to pull out his chair like the proper gentleman he was raised to be. Harry orders a glass of wine, because the restaurant is the fancy type and it seems like the thing to do. They probably don't even have raspberry cosmos on the drink menu.

They talk easily, general getting-to-know-you chatter that quickly moves on to topics such as who's going to win the Champions league to whether or not Simon Cowell could get elected as Prime Minister.

In a rare pause in the conversation, Harry finds himself blurting out, "I've fancied you for ages."

Louis raises his eyebrows, but can't fight back the pleased grin. "Ages, huh? Something you're not telling me, Harry? Do we know each other from another life?"

Well, ages might be a slight exaggeration. Harry does quite like the other life idea, though; it fits very nicely with his own romantic notions.

The waitress comes by to ask if they'd like desert and Louis doesn't even wait for Harry to answer before he's declining for the both of them, leering at Harry as he does so. Oh, Harry does appreciate a lack of subtly in a boy.

Back at Harry's flat, Harry fumbles with his keys as Louis presses up behind him, purposely flustering him. As soon as he gets the door open, Harry is pulling Louis in towards him by his belt loops and kicking the door shut. He immediately pushes Louis up against it, and Louis's breath hitches a bit.

Louis makes as if to head down the hall to Harry's room, but Harry pushes him in the direction of the living room. Louis's eyebrows furrow, but otherwise he doesn't seem bothered, following along easily.

When Niall gets home from work, Harry is on his knees in front of Louis, whose pants and trousers are around his ankles. It's unparalleled timing, really couldn't have gone better than if Harry had planned it himself. Which he didn't, of course.

Niall lets out an impressive stream of curse words—a few of which Harry is quite sure he made up on the spot—and the door slams loudly, Niall's voice fading quickly behind it.

There's a short pause in which Harry barely holds back his laughter, shaking a bit with the strain.

Louis eyes him curiously. "You knew he was coming back, didn't you?"

Harry shifts uncomfortably, biting his lip. He doesn't want Louis to think he was trying to embarrass him but he also doesn't want to lie. "Um."

Louis lets out a delighted laugh. "Oh, you and I are going to get on _beautifully_ , Harry Styles."


End file.
